Ah, but just whose interpretation of the Bible do we believe?

(PS I have just returned from holidays. Although I said I would look at the Ten Commandments next, while I was away I worked out that there are a few more preliminaries I need to work through first!  So here goes...)

This is a serious problem. To re-phrase an old joke: “ask two Biblical scholars what a text means and you will have three opinions!” Matters get even worse with platform speakers and church leaders whose main claim to fame is having strong opinions. Even ordinary people generally have a pre-formed notion of what they would like the Bible to say. All these can and regularly do make the Bible out to say just about whatever they want!

Making the facts say anything we want is not confined to Bible study. For those who entered debating competitions at school you will remember that after the subject was given one often tossed a coin to decide which team would have to try to prove the statement true. The other team then had to prove the statement wrong. It is surprising how many convincing arguments you can invent in favour of a proposition even when you actually believe it is wrong.

All this has led many people to throw their hands up in despair and in effect say “It is simply impossible to be certain about anything”. Of recent decades it has seemed to me that churches have been swamped by clergy who at least in their preaching have said that there are no certainties, even about God. (Of course it is often these same people who have the greatest degree of certainty that their own group's views – from theology to politics – are right.)

On the other hand I have up to this point been making a case that God is our ultimate moral reference, and the Bible his official exposition of his character and purposes. So although I can see the problems I am not advocating that we should give up attempting to use the Bible.

To put it another way: on one hand I am against the idea that every moral problem can be answered and all argument settled by simply quoting a few Bible verses. On the other hand I am against the opposite notion that nothing can be settled from the Bible.

Let me give an example of a possible way forward by looking at how we humans have dealt with a similar conundrum.

Take the criminal law courts. Their role is to convict (and subsequently punish) the guilty and to acquit the innocent. Successfully carrying out this role is close to essential for their society to function. But courts face two problems in reaching a verdict. Getting at the “Truth”; and the effects of making a mistake.

The Truth is out there. Suppose Joe Blow is accused of killing Fred Nerks, either he did kill him or he did not. That is history, it happened how it happened. But this Truth is not generally accessible – the court can't go back in a time machine and watch everything that really happened. They have to weigh the evidence that the two opposing counsel have presented and make their decision.

The other problem the court faces is effects of making a mistake in what they think that truth is.

Punishing wrongdoers is, among other things, a practical necessary in order to maintain any human society, but the society will survive if occasionally wrongdoers escape. However punishing an innocent person is a thing evil in itself so it aught always to be avoided.

How do courts deal with these problems

If courts took the view: “the prosecutor says he did it, the defence says he didn't. We can't go back in time and see for ourselves so we can't decide” our criminal justice system would collapse, and society with it.

The social necessity for punishing wrongdoers is so pressing that we do not throw up our hands and say “It is simply impossible to be certain about anything”. We aim for the best 'certainty' that is in practical terms possible, and work with that. We formulate rules of such things as procedural fairness and of evidence because these have been found to reduce the incidence of wrong verdicts. We allow for the possibility of error by such things as allowing appeals and by giving the accused person “the benefit of the doubt”.

There are several points of similarity between the courts and moral philosophy where the courts point the way forward.

A justice system is essential to human society, so courts make ways to function despite all difficulties. Moral rules just are a fact in any human society. So we need to find ways to make good ones, despite all difficuties.

For moralists there is a truth out there: God's moral character is what it is and in relation to a moral question it does provide the standard by which to judge. But like the courts, deciding what that truth is in relation to a particular question may be hotly contested. We need to accept the idea of having to evaluate the evidence, possibly from several opposing or at least conflicting sources and make our best decision. Like the courts: we do may not have certainty, we just have “beyond reasonable doubt”.

In criminal justice, false positive results are more damaging than false negatives. This may apply t moralists. There is a famous dictum by one Judge Blackwell “I would rather acquit ten guilty murderers than hang one innocent person”. History has many tragic examples of religious zealots causing suffering by their rules. Biblical moralists need to consider that they may err, and make sure that if so, they err on the least deleterious side!

Courts have found it necessary to introduce rules as to how they operate. For instance gossip and rumours are frequently inaccurate, so there is a rule against hearsay evidence being admitted. One side of an argument often sounds right until the other side is heard: so accused persons have to be given a chance to answer the allegations against them. Biblical moralists will also need rules of interpretation to reduce the likelihood of making mistakes. I the next post I hope to say something about this.